Anne and I are parents of 3 daughters, 7 yr old Éle, 4years and 10months old Tara and Érin who is 10 months old. Tara and Érin were both born on 2nd December.
When Tara was born we thought she had a “good colour”, we queried it and were told all babies were jaundiced at first and that it would go away over the next few weeks. It didn’t and thankfully for an observant Local Health nurse, after 4 weeks we were sent to get bloods done and our roller coaster started.
We were rushed from Limerick to Crumlin with little understanding of what lay ahead. Further tests were carried out in Crumlin and it emerged that Tara had Billary Atresia. The Kasai Procedure was preformed and we were told very thing had gone according to plan.
The after operation care was the hardest part. We only had the information that we had been told and knew so little, that we didn’t even know what questions to ask. We were told that Tara would have to make a bowel movement before we could start feeding her, essentially this was to ensure there were no “leaks”. That made sense.
However, it took 4 days for any kind of movement and the stress and worry that Anne and I endured in those 4 days was huge. We knew Tara was crying because she was hungry but we couldn’t give her her feeds. Looking back, had we been told from the outset that it may take a number of days for the bowel movement we could have endured a bit better, but, we understood that it would be hours not days. This is a nugget of information that would have helped us greatly.
That said, the care and help that Tara got, the one on one cuddling and soothing that the nurses gave her during those few days and nights was unreal, I often wondered how they could care so much for MY baby, but thats why Nurses are nurses, because they CARE.
Tara was released from Crumlin in Late January 2007. She was released to go home with us to Limerick with only a couple of days supply of Meds and special feed tthat she required. This could have been organised a bit better and a link between local pharmacies and Crumlin should be developed to help parents to source the prescribed MEDS.
Tara was admitted and month later to Limerick with possible cholangitis, she did a course of Antibiotics and has not been back as an inpatient since.
She continues to attend Dr. Broderick’s clinics in Crumlin and has had ultra sound mapping and 2 endoscopies done to look for Varicies, but thankfully none found to date. Her MEDS currently are 2.5ml Keflex x 1 per day and 1ml AquADEK Vitamin Supplement x 1 per day.
Tara is currently thriving and started main stream school in September and is loving it.
Tara has a little sister now called Érin. We had her tested for Liver function etc…within a week of being born and all was fine.